An aromatic carbonate is an eco-friendly carbonyl source capable of replacing phosgene which is a deadly toxic compound. An aromatic carbonate may be obtained through reaction of an aromatic alcohol compound with carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, or urea. However, this reaction is associated with problems such as generation of by-products, inflow of impurities into a product, use of expensive catalysts, complex processes, and the like.
To overcome these problems, there has been developed a method of preparing an aromatic carbonate through transesterification of an aliphatic carbonate (dialkyl carbonate) with an aromatic alcohol. Examples of catalysts used in transesterification may include PbO, TiX4 (X being an alkoxy group, an aryloxy group, or halogen), SnR2(X)2 (R being an alkyl group, and X being an alkoxy group, an aryloxy group, or a halogen element).
However, despite high stability, a PbO catalyst has low activity, thereby causing very slow transesterification. Accordingly, unreacted dialkyl carbonate must be recycled many times. Thus, there is a need for a catalyst which exhibits increased reactivity to reduce such a recycling process. TiX4 and SnR2(X)2 have disadvantages of lack of stability and generation of substantial amounts of by-products, such as ether, despite higher activity than PbO.
Therefore, there is a need for a method of stably preparing an aromatic carbonate in high yield using dialkyl carbonate as a starting material.